Megan Durham shows voice teachers how to recognize stress responses in the body, honor a student's 'no,' and use somatic tools that keep singers present.

Megan Durham, singing voice specialist and voice faculty at the University of Louisville, walks you through what trauma-informed care actually means for a voice professional. You'll work through definitions of trauma, the SAMHSA-based principles (safety, trust, peer support, empowerment and choice, collaboration, and equity), and threat detection or neuroception in the body. You'll practice live: fist-and-breath dual awareness, a neuroception exercise using images and loaded voice words like support, placement and pitch, "earthquake architecture" falling practice, proprioception finger games, tapping, and dignity/humility gesture work. You'll leave able to reframe so-called vocal faults as survival strategies and to turn any warm-up into a dual-awareness tool.